A Boy and His Dog: Dog Days of the Apocalypse
by Renegade the Unicorn
Summary: Based on the 1969 novella by Harlan Ellison, as well as the subsequent 1975 film adaptation by L.Q. Jones. A young man and his telepathic dog work as a team to survive the post-nuclear wastes of 2024, scavenging for food and sex. Rated T for language, sexual references, and black comedy.
1. 0: Prologue

_November 22nd, 1963. At 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, a plot to asasinate President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was foiled when Secret Service agents spotted Lee Harvey Oswald standing at the top of a nearby building. Arrested and tried with attempted assasination, an investigation found that Oswald did not work alone: he and a small group of radical Communists had been planning the assasination for months, aided by a group of Russian spies who disagreed with Khruschev's detente with the United States. Tensions between Russia and the United States over the matter begin a conventional World War III that same year. In 1969, Kennedy's vice president Lyndon B. Johnson ran for president, and won. He died 4 years later. He was replaced by his vice president Hubert Humphrey, whose term was from 1973-1977. He died of bladder cancer in 1978._

 _In the twilight years of the 1970s, John F. Kennedy's former opponent for the presidency, Richard M. Nixon, was elected. During his presidency, World War III ended with an armastice signed in 1983 by both the Eastern and Western blocs. In total, World War III lasted 20 years, during which time advancements in robotics, animal intelligence, and telepathy had taken place. These endeavors resulted in a new superanimal being created: a telepathic breed of dog able to communicate with its partnered human, as well as pinpointing the exact location of supplies and ammunition alongside other humans in the vicinity. Used by the military during WWIII, these dogs were injected with dolphin spinal fluid, which passed onto their genetic offspring. In 1988, a hardline Soviet revolution took place, with a civil war lasting three years. The hardliners ended up winning, which worsened relations between Russia and America._

 _During this time, two more Kennedys were elected president; the first's term lasted from 1986 to 1993. The next one's lasted from 1993 to 2001, after which another Kennedy was elected into office. The year 2007 would be the last one for civilization as we knew it._

 _World War IV lasted five days, during which time the last of the missile silos from both sides spewed forth their destructive offspring, bathing the world in nuclear fire._

 _Now the year is 2024 AD, 17 years after that fateful week. The desert is inhabited by men who fight each other for the remaining resources. Food and water are the currency of the new world, but neither are as precious or more sought after as women. Nearly eradicated in the nuclear holocaust, the female gender is a rare sight aboveground, with the remainder located in downunders, large shelter-like communities meant to emulate a mockery of pre-war innocence. With the aid of the descendants of the telepathic dogs, those who are not in gangs known as roverpaks must survive on what they can and look for their next lay._

 _This story is about a young man and his dog as they try and survive these dog days of the apocalypse._

 _ **A BOY AND HIS DOG: DOG DAYS OF THE APOCALYPSE**_

 _BY RENEGADE THE UNICORN_


	2. 1: The Road

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I AM EXTREMELY SORRY TO THE FEW PEOPLE WHO HAVE READ THIS STORY...or at least the prologue anyway. The reasons for not updating in over a month are many, the most important being that of my high school graduation. Vacation has recently started for me, and I will spend the next 6 months updating not only this story, but also starting a new fanfiction. Now that I have gotten that bit out of the way, I'll explain a bit on how this fanfic will work, as well as the obilgatory disclaimer. This story will not have a cohesive plot, per se, acting as more of a collection of semi-connected oneshots. I do not own A Boy and His Dog, that belongs to Harlan Ellison and L.Q. Jones. Constructive criticism is not only welcomed, but encouraged as well.**

The Road

I.

Hot. That was the perfect word to describe the desert, the young man decided as he wandered the road that, at one point, must've been a highway back before World War IV. Hot and dry. The young man thinking these thoughts was a boy of around 15 years of age, not particularly attractive and not particularly hideous either. He was a Caucasian with slightly tanned skin, topped with a nest of greasy midnight-black hair. His eyes, a deep shit-brown, held the look of a no-nonsense, I-don't-give-a-damn kind of guy. He wore a dirty brown shirt that had might've once been a bright red, now ravaged and worn by the elements, neglect, and filth.

It was a bit tight, yet it still fit the teen's skinny medium frame quite well. The kid's pants, once a nice-looking pair of Levi's jeans scavenged from the ruins of some clothing store, were now nearly bleached white, with few spots of blue remaining. His shoes were the same as his shirt, a dirty brown as well as nearly far past worn, with holes around the toe area quite clearly visible. The kid's name was Toby Jones, and he was your typical scavenger: only caring about the finer things in life...that is, if food and getting into a woman's pants was one's definition of the finer things. The small dog accompanying him, on the other hand, was a different story all together. The dog, a 2-year old Chihuahua/schnauzer mix (most commonly known as a Chizer), had a sandy-brown coat, with fur like wires and eyes just as brown as the boy's. His name was Psy, on account of him being descended from the superdogs of long ago, with the ability to communicate with his owner telepathically.

II.

The road itself had long since decayed, whole sections of it crumbling from the aftereffects of the bombs, as well as the weather. Bordered by rusted, expired cars with equally expired passengers (some of these being entire families of men, women, and most horrifically children), the wasteland surrounding the road fared no better. In the distance, Toby could see a roverpak fighting over something, most likely food. God, what he wouldn't give for a nice can of peaches right about now. This thought, it seemed, had brought back an earlier question. "Psy?" he asked, his voice breaking a bit from the mid-to-late stages of puberty.

"What?" the dog replied, obviously somewhat annoyed. Ever since they'd been walking this road, Toby had been bugging him about food for God-knew-how-long. "If this is either about food or how you aren't getting into some broad, I'm going to bite your-"

"Why, exactly, are we walking down this road?" Toby interrupted questioningly.

"..." Psy hadn't thought about this himself. Most often, traveling the wasteland consisted of walking (and in rare cases, driving) across miles and miles of desert. The roads themselves were rarely, if ever, used. It wasn't like they could lead you anywhere useful, just bombed-out and mutant-infested ruins. Settlements themselves were few and far between, nearly all of them being shantytowns constructed of whatever materials could be scavenged on-hand. So, why, exactly, were they on this road? "I don't know, Toby. I just don't know..." Psy answered finally, an unsure, almost resigned tone in his voice. The duo just kept walking, not sure where this road would take them for now.

As it turned out, the road did take them somewhere: a ruined, yet unscavenged town, seemingly forgotten after the world burned. The town had at one point been typical small-town Americana, with a simple layout where Main Street connected with Maple, Maple connected with Smith, and so on. The connected streets themselves connected several buildings, such as the malt shop, bank, and general store. The town, aside from the interconnected streets and buildings, also contained rows of rather modest looking houses; little boxes ticky-tacky, little boxes all the same. The homes, all painted a stainless white, were now a sickly and pale-ish yellow. The lawns, once green, manicured, and kept pretty by their long-deceased owners, were now the same color as the facades of the houses: sickly yellow, although the grasses were more of a brownish color. The houses themselves were derelict, long-since abandoned and starting to give themselves over to new, mutated nature.

"A relic of the past, now given way to the blasted hell of the future." Psy observed, a solemn and sorry tone in his voice. "Just imagine what kinds of stories this place once held: teenagers making out in the malt shop while dancing to the latest records...mothers baking apple pies and cooling them in the windowsills...ah, much simpler times, ones that kids like you wouldn't appreciate." Toby shot the dog a dirty look, but said nothing. Noting the sun was going down, Toby stopped and set up a small campfire. He then went and scavenged in the various shops for foodstuffs, finding several cans of baked beans flavored with bacon bits, a few packages of cocktail weenies, and hallelujah, peaches! Toby knew exactly what he would make for dinner that night.

III.

As the setting sun gave way into the pitch-black darkness of the night, the only light in the ruins of the town being that of Toby and Psy's campfire. A small, black, and rusted pot filled with franks and beans simmered over the campfire, a fair amount of the contents within eaten. The boy softly scratched the dog's back, happy to have finally eaten something. "You know, Psy...this place did seem nice at one point...didja get enough to eat?" Psy nodded, as Toby opened up a can of peaches. The golden fruits, drenched in a juicy syrup, tumbled into Toby's mouth. When Toby was done, he grabbed another can...and another can, eating as many peaches as he wanted to.

When he was done, Toby lay next to his dog, made sure to keep his gun on his person, then went to sleep. Over the next few hours, the fire died out, leaving nothing but dying embers to light up the night. The next morning, as the night transitioned into dawn, Toby and Psy awoke. Slowly getting up, Toby looked at the campsite, almost sorry to leave the place. But they had to keep traveling, as solos and their dogs tend to do. As they began walking, Toby thought about what Psy had said: A relic of the past, now given way to the blasted hell of the future. And he realized that everywhere he looked, this was true: from the bunkers to the movie houses, these were all relics of the past, remnants of a world that had destroyed itself 17 years ago.

As the duo walked on the road towards the wasteland, the sun's heat beat down on the two like Apollo's sledgehammer. Looking around him, Toby saw the desert. And there was only one word to describe that: hot.


End file.
